“Don’t you dare leave me again, Quinn! Open your fucking eyes, Gods damn it.”
Quinn muttered an incoherent curse as he rattled her back into the too bright sterility of a hospital room. Jostling her with gentle violence, it was too much for her battered insides. She opened her eyes and glared at him with all the impotent anger she could muster.
“Begging… you… to stop.” Chest heaving with the exertion of just a few words, her head lolled on the pillow. Weakened by the simple effort of speech.
“Yes, you were going into heat when I arrived.” There was no true apology there, but a darkness clouded his gaze as he shifted closer. Settling his weight on the large bed, he surrounded Quinn with elbows propped on either side, keeping their faces close. “When I came out of my rut the next evening, you were bleeding. They said much longer, and you would have bled out.”
Now the sweep of his brows slammed together, lining his forehead with craggy furrows. Fingers that dared to tremble smoothed back a tattered curl from her face. The darkness in his eyes burst inside her chest, a wealth of haggard desperation and raging fury. It stole her breath as the bitter slick slide of fear wound through it all, permeating her every cell in roiling black.
“They said you’d been poisoned. An anticoagulant, such as those commonly found in rat poison. Among other things.”
“Carmela’s?”
“No,” Tobias said, more of a snarl than speech. As if to stop himself from hurting her further, he twisted the sheets in fists that ached with the need to cause pain and wreak chaos. “It takes repeated doses.”
“The kids!” Quinn wanted to scream, but it came as a whine from her aching lungs when she set her hands to his chest. Pushing with all of her strength didn’t even muss his disheveled clothing. When he refused to budge, she turned her slapping hands to the needle shoved deep into her arm. Tugging at the translucent tubes winding their way out of her body, she managed to loosen the tape before Tobias caught her hands and held them to his chest.
“They’re fine. They’ve both been checked out and are perfectly healthy.” The rasping thunder of his purr tried to soothe while he kept her still. “Adam and Elise are with people that can be trusted.”
“Who?”
“Rey and his… Omega.”
“Mr. Rey…?” Quinn’s eyes rounded, mouth slack before she began to shake her head. It started as a slow glide, rushing towards a jerky denial as she tangled her hand in the slack lines flowing from her arm to be free. Voice a grating rasp, she condemned. “He runs guns and drugs, whores out women, and you think my babies are safe? Fucking idiot!”
“Keep your voice down.” Each word bit out through a sound that strained to be a calming purr. A losing battle as she defied him further, managing to get the IV free. Patience gone in the snap of some monitor falling free from her, his grabbed a fistful of her hair. Pulled her back to the bed by that grip until Quinn arched and whined. “Who do you think he does all those things for? He and Beaumont won’t let anything happen to them, and more of my men are there besides.”
“But you don’t know who—”
“Yet. Once you are stable, I’ll start looking. I will find them.”
Promises of things Quinn could not comprehend danced in jagged bursts through his dark gaze. Pain was a pale word to describe the evil intent that damn near frolicked there, an eagerness that terrified her more than the smoky taste of violence now coating her throat.
He shuttered it all away, cool and aloof as any dominant male when he saw her fear. Scrubbing at her scalp, detached in his soothing, his mind was in dark places Quinn didn’t want to know about.
“Rest, little bird,” Tobias murmured, leaning down to brush his lips against her clammy forehead. He even ignored the way she flinched. “I’ll fetch the nurse to put these back in you.”
Leaving the room, the opened door showed dark figures, some towering over Tobias. They all bowed their head in respect to their Alpha as he murmured something to them and turned, her view of the scene cut off as the door swung shut.
Nerves began attacking her senses when his presence swept from the room. No longer coddled inside the protective bubble of an Alpha’s rage, she felt too small and alone in the starkness. Though the sounds of traffic and the city at large were muffled, proving she was far away from the bustle, the would be quiet was unnerving. All that came to her ears was the murmuring of doctors and nurses as they passed her door, fading out as they veered an abrupt path around her guards.
What if one of them was the culprit? There was no way for Tobias to know.
Quinn’s mouth opened on a scream as the door swung inward, hand clapping over tender lips to silence the sound that her throat strangled until nothing more than a ragged wheeze left her. Too wide eyes and trembling limbs met the unbelievable sight before her.
Marina’s eyes narrowed to slits as she bustled into the room wearing faded green scrubs and sensible sneakers, taking in Quinn’s reaction with a curl of her lips. Trying to close the door behind her, she found it snagged in a beefy palm. Turning to the males hovering in the doorway, she batted her long lashes and smiled.
“Door stays open,” one of the burly men muttered, seeming unaffected by Marina’s coy flirtation. His gaze was careful to remain centered on her mother, refusing to even glance at Quinn where she sat frozen.
“Gentlemen, I’m going to have to check some things that I’m sure her mate doesn’t want you to see.”
The act of simple subtlety was so unlike anything Quinn had ever seen from her mother. Tongue and lips refusing to form words, she could neither agree nor deny this awful charade. A no doubt stolen name tag dangling from her neck, Marina presented a façade that was difficult to question. Even her usual gaudy makeup had been tempered to subtle hues and clean lines, giving her the appearance of a ragged woman at the end of her shift.
“Then you can wait for him to return.”
“I just have to check the bruising under her gown, guys, see if it’s gotten worse. It’ll be five minutes tops. Come on, I have other patients and the doctors here are jerks.” Marina added a delicate pout, hip jutting to the side. “They’re not going to cut me any slack because of who she is. The damage was pretty bad. Really need to make sure it hasn’t gotten worse.”
A glimmer of uncertainty slipped behind the guard’s eyes. While not looking at Quinn head on, there was the impression of being studied. No doubt seeing the deep purple and indigo blotches decorating her arms and neck, the sickly lavender around her jaw. In the narrow mirror opposite the bed, Quinn saw the terrifying truth of her appearance. The guard must know what had happened as well as the ramifications. It was whether or not he feared the consequences of what Tobias would do to him if things worsened and he denied this nurse the ability to find out that would see this insane plan of Marina’s to fruition.
